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Excerpt from Personal logs of Dr. Cornelius Gregory, Head Researcher of Zion Institute:

I summoned a psychologist for our project, Dr. Janice Peterson, and this is what I get. In addition to my normal duties, I am required to enter items on my personal “feelings” regarding the projects. I have had to terminate far too many of our projects, I begin to fear that the over all operation will not conclude successfully in my lifetime. I suppose I will start with our current subject. Walter Unevan is my best chance of bringing my genetics research to the spot-light it truly deserves.

Unfortunately my military over-seers just see the money. All that they see is that the project is hemorrhaging money. Short sighted, bad decisions threaten everything that I am working towards. I spend more and more of my time trying to secure the mental state of Walter, but they want him field proven far in advance of any of my recommendations.

Once upon a time there was a child born into the New Year. That year was 2001, the 22 century and all of the promise that it gave us. This child's name was Walter Unevan, before his birth he was destined for greatness. He had no parents, but all of those who had come before him had added to his distinctiveness, he was the newest iteration of a


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special project that was code named "scratch". Which is relatively fitting because he was a human who was created from such. He was the
culmination of all of my efforts. Our efforts. Dozens of science divisions mapping the human genome. He is made from the blocks you would find in any human, yet he was made from lab DNA. He was the pinnacle of all Biological research that has ever come before. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and this is what we have wrought.

The projects before Walter, tallying 722 "subjects" had all failed due to imperfections and oversight. Only 200 of these original subjects still live, if you would call it that. They're nicknamed the broken ones, failed attempts to create life. I'm just glad that we discovered how to nullify the "Frankenstein Effect" as it was so awfully put. The Effect is when the subjects attacked lab personnel with their special talents. There is overriding firm ware built into each member of project scratch, and early efforts showed the ability to overcome those safeties.

Each subject has the strength of 28 average men, was brilliant, and was half composed of nanites. Every time that we thought we had reached the limits of intellect, new technologies and combinations revealed themselves, Walter is the smartest subject that we have created




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to date, his mind is amazing with a seemingly limitless potential for memory and learning. The nanites hold the body of the subject together
and grant a variety of superhuman characteristics. They also permit a limited degree of mesomorphing, that is shape shifting with voice and form, and the ability to... absorb matter into the body for nourishment or
quick energy. One of the limitations originally built into the project was a set number of nano colonies that could be used at one time, or carried into the field. We have found it is easier to contain the rampant expansion of the nanites by simply destroying them after an exercise.

I find it disturbing to admit that Walter has developed some unexpected bonuses, apparently he can change the texture of his skin to anything he desires, excluding liquids. He hasn't figured out liquids yet, I should say I don't expect him to, he is not completely made of those nano colonies, so something has to be his central form. I have been mapping the evolution of his physical form, and he seems to be adapting consistently to new challenges and adjusting his biology.

He has also developed some form of chameleon type powers, thankfully he has only developed the ability to become translucent or a color and is not able to become transparent otherwise we would never find him in the lab. As it is we can still see a vague motion in the air he occupies as he moves about. However all he has to do is stay fully still


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and he can hide for quite a while because the nanites render him immune to conventional radar, sonar, and basically any equipment we
have dug up for the task of locating him. I think we'll have to tag him with a tracking device…

With the nature of his body, we will have to mask the tracking device inside of his nano colonies, or better yet, his physical central form. My first concern, and the reason I brought in this psychologist to the facility, is to maintain Walter's mental stability. If we lose Walter, 16 years of work will have been lost, and I will have to start, again, from “Scratch.” I am not getting any younger, and my morale diminishes more with every set-back.
My only consolation in this current situation is that all of the synergies that we examine and observe in subject Walter Unevan, will help us moving forward with production models of Improved Soldiers at the bright end of the dark tunnel we are in with Project Scratch. Walter has benefited from all of the prior failures, and I take solace in that. For that, my failures have been successes. We will install the tracking device the next sleep cycle that Walter is subjected to, while we collect samples of tissues and fluids from his entire form.



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Contents
Chapter 1: The Demon's Within
Chapter 2: The Pages of History
Chapter 3: Making Do
Chapter 4: It's Trap
Chapter 5: There You Are
Chapter 6: Spineless One
Chapter 7: Circles
Chapter 8: Theurgist Blossom
Chapter 9: Surreal Ease
Chapter 10: Promises Of Sowh
Chapter 11: Responsibility
Epilogue
Afterword





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THE DEMONS WITHIN
Each and all have a demon within, How long since last you fought yours has it been? When not fighting with your own inner demon, Does it mean he gave up, or that you have given in? Have you made a pact, a deal with your personal devil? An agreement forged in innocent sufferings to keep your life on level. Would you pay with another life to keep HIM quiet, For a moments peace would you find someone to fight. Follow it's lead, and give into temptation, Just once and you have sealed your ruination. To silence the nagging voice within, could you give in to hate? How could you have so willingly sealed yourself to this doomed fate?

Part 1. Kore. Chapter 1.

Dr. Cornelius Gregory takes off his dark rimmed glasses, sighing as he sets them down on his desk. He watches the wall of monitors showing dozens of views of the same room. An unconscious form lies prone between a human bee-hive of activity around him. Dr. Gregory rubs the bridge of his nose, only partially aware of the woman still speaking at him from his left.

“I am sorry Dr. Peterson, what was that?” He pulls his eyes off of the monitors as more of the science staff are extracting spinal fluid samples from the subject in the center of their storm of activity. The woman, wearing business appropriate skirt and shirt, under a white lab coat with her necessary security badge, clears her throat to start over.

“I said, why is the General pushing so hard for these field exercises? All of your documentation says that having the test subject outside of the facility is a massive danger, especially since he has been displaying a pattern of dissociative behaviors.” Dr. Peterson pauses, moving documents around in the folder in front of her, and frowns at Dr Gregory in his rumpled, stained white lab coat.

“I don't know how to make General Hugh listen to reason. He wants Project Scratch to be yielding him assets, because for years we have not had any field assets, and now that Walter has reached this stage, and his activities in the simulator have drawn the General's attention, all he sees is that Walter can be an asset.” Dr Gregory draws his hands down through his short dark hair, and over his thin face in exasperation, and peers over the tops of his fingers at her as he asks, “Do you have any suggestions?”

Dr. Peterson shakes her head, “I have already told you, I filed my report, and I don't think that my 'suggestions' are being taken seriously under advisement. Is there anyone you can contact, any strings you can pull?”

Dr. Gregory smiles thinly, “I have pulled all of my strings, and called in every favor I had. They have changed the over-sight committee on this project more times than they ever told me. As far as I know, the General is the one pulling the strings on the entire project at present. He is in charge of oversight, and has been threatening me with pulling the plug on my funding for months now. The moment he saw what Walter could do in the Simulator he has been on me, constantly pushing the envelope on Walter.”

Dr. Gregory picks up his glasses and moves across the room, shambling with the clear exhaustion from far too many sleepless nights. He stands at the bank of monitors on the wall, carefully looking as information streams in from the dozens of samples they are extracting from Walter's unconscious form on the examining table. He indicates brain-wave function readouts, and looks to the psychologist. “Dr. Peterson, can you look at something for me? I think it may just be my lack of sleep.”

Dr Peterson takes a closer look at where Dr. Gregory indicates on the charts. She reaches past him, and selects the cross-indexed items already highlights by Dr. Gregory. She frowns, “Are these readouts that are taken from him while he is under?” Dr. Gregory nods, and steps aside to give her more room, and full access to the screens. She moves her hand over a few screens, sending information to multiple other screens for easier cross-referencing.

She purses her lips, and looks intently at graphs and charts. “I see there was a spike of activity a few months ago, while he was under. Does this coincide with his first field exercise?” Dr. Gregory nods. “And all of these scans after, are exactly the same scan as he had the time prior? No deviation in neural activity?”

Dr. Gregory responds quietly, “It is not a good sign, I think that Walter may have found a way around our procedures to render him unconscious. I think he is observing us, as we take our samples. It could be my tired mind, but that is the prevailing hypothesis that I am lead to with the information available to us.”

She shakes her head, “No, that's not possible. Your people are cutting deeply into his body with a battery of tests and probes. Prying into delicate tissues like that, while they need to extract fluids from brain, spine, joints, and all manner of other locations. What would be the purpose of his hiding his being awake? He would be undergoing all of these tests without the benefit of sedative or anesthetic?”

“I don't know why he would do it, but I think that is what he is doing. I have a bad feeling that the General has pushed him too hard, too fast. I fear that we are losing control over this experiment. If we lose control, we will have to put Walter down, and we will lose our 16 years of work on Walter. To continue from there, we would have to go back to the drawing board, birth a new fetus to bring to term. And we likely won't get that option, since General Hugh is talking about shutting us down.”

Dr. Peterson shakes her head, “You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, what are you going to do?” She has a look of concern on her face. She adds, “Could he be dangerous to the technicians?”

He sits back into his chair hard, the seat reclining much farther than normal, as though the weight of the world came down with him when he sat down. “I just don't know. I don't have enough information yet. I just don't know.”